robbo203
Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Young Master Smeet wrote:I ask, would Lbird see practicing geneticists gaoled if they continued to dispute the majority vote? Or tried to contionue writing papers and doing research against the wish of the majority?
Yes I wanna know LBird's answer to that too! He never did get round to explaining what was the point in 7 billion people voting on tens of thousands of scientific theories every year or indeed how this even remotely practical, Nothing wrong with organising production on a democratic basis but democratically determining the truth value of ideas is another matter entirely!
What ever happened to Barry? One of my most memorable memories of him was when he represented the SPGB in a debate in Guildford back in 1980s against an organisation called – I vaguely remember – "Peace Through Nato" or some such name. He brought along with him an antique sword which he unsheathed and held up during the course of his contribution much to the consternation of his opponent who, I swear, turned slightly pale at the sight of it. Barry's point was a simple but effective one – war was gruesome, irrespective of the technology used, and he took care to point out the runnel down which the blood would flow when the sword pierced the victim's body.Yer just don't make 'em like that anymore!
Dave B wrote:[2] emergence is becoming an increasingly important idea in theoretical physics Thus it was a central theme in this recent Institute of Physics lecture The origin of the Universe. From macrophysics to microphysics Wednesday, 11 January 2017, 18:30 – 19:30 Professor Lucio Piccirillo, University of Manchesterhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EmergenceIts not just in physics that the emergence paradigm is gaining ground. In sociology a notable example of this approach to Durkheim is Keith’s Sawyers thought-provoking article “Durkheim’s Dilemma: Towards a Sociology of Emergence” https://www.unc.edu/home/rksawyer/PDFs/durkheim.pdf According to Sawyer, the emergence paradigm has become well established in a number of disciplines but has yet to really take hold in sociology (he wrote this article in 2002, mind you). One such discipline where it has made considerable inroads is the cognitive sciences. In the process, it has provoked much philosophical debate on the vexed relationship between mind and brain . Looking at this relationshop from an "emergent perspective" affords us analogous insights into the relationship between individuals and society in sociological thinking. The early post war era ushered in the “cognitive revolution" – though many of the ideas associated with this development can be traced back at least to the early 20th century when "emergentism" began to be discussed in a significant way and was often linked with the philosophical tradition of pragmatism However, this did not come to much and was soon eclipsed by the rise of the behaviourist paradigm which became absolutely dominant in the field of psychology by the mid 20th century. Behaviourism, developed and popularised by the likes of Pavlov, Watson, B F Skinner and others, more or less rejected "mentalism" with its focus on thought processes in favour of what it called a "science of behaviour", Behaviour was something that could be "objectively" observed and scientifically measured whereas mental states were, by their very nature, unobservable. Needless to say, Freudian psychodynamics relying on introspection and the recollection of childhood experiences was also repudiated for this reason. With the cognitive revolution, this whole behaviourist paradigm came under assault. That revolution was the outcome of several factors. Among these were the increasing application of interdisciplinary approaches to this whole subject and the introduction of new technologies such as sophisticated brain scanning equipment and computers. Computerisation in particular provided fertile soil in which new speculative insights into the way in which the mind might work, took root. Analogies were drawn between a computer's hardware and its software in which the brain was said to correspond to the former and the mind, the later. The development of Artificial Intelligence was predicated on the assumption that machines could simulate human intelligence and thus necessitated investigation into such mental processes as reasoning, perception and communication. Actually, it was Chomsky's celebrated critique of Skinner's book Verbal Behaviour in 1959 on the subject of language acquisition in which he propounded the view that human beings had an innate capacity for language that, in a way, sparked the cognitive revolution and marked the turning point in the fortunes of behaviorism. In the wake of that revolution a new theoretical perspective gained ground, loosely called “non-reductive physicalism”. Representing the “emergence paradigm” in this particular field, non-reductive physicalism increasingly came to be seen as a kind of intermediate position between the reductionist physicalism of “identity theory” (which regards consciousness as an essentially neurophysical process) and metaphysical dualism (which disavows any substantive connection between thought and neurophysical activity). I think the same basic kind of approach could be usefuly applied to sociology. Society depends on individuals but is not reducible to individiuals as per the mythical "contract" theory of society, propounded by Locke and other individualust thinkers, where society is essentially just the individual Writ Large. Or Mrs Thatcher's balmy claim that there is no such thing as society only individuals and their families…..
Osama Jafar wrote:am writing on the Subject Body!Osama. it might be better to start a new thread than change the title of an existing thread. It gets very confusing otherwise!
J Surman wrote:Something wrong with this page – it's not moving on from 02/01/17 although it's at the head of today's posts.Anybody else finding this?Yes and the title has changed hasnt it?
Utopia. The word itself was coined by Thomas More in 1516. Deriving from the Greek word for "no place" (which, spelt slightly differently, means "good place"), it stands for an imaginary, idealised and sought after society. It conveys also the idea of something that is essentially unachievable. To be called a "utopian" is to be dismissed as an impractical dreamer. Utopians, however, may take some comfort from the fact that history, amongst other things, has been a record of what was once thought to be unachievable, even unimaginable, being realised. As Oscar Wilde put it in The Soul of Man under Socialism, "A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not even worth glancing at. Progress is the realisation of Utopias" Utopian thought has had a long and illustrious past – from the musings of the legendary King Gilgamesh of Ancient Sumeria in 2000 BC to the hi-tech eco-friendly communes of today. What do all these different utopias have in common? According to Ian Tod and Michael Wheeler: The answer is very little in detail, except perhaps for an almost universal dislike of lawyers, and there are even exceptions to that generalisation. However, utopias are about how people should live, about human nature, and the meaning and purpose of life. And thus they deal with perennial problems: happiness, good and evil, authority, the state, religion, knowledge, work, sex, equality, liberty. Some utopias assume that people are inherently bad and that they need a state to prevent society breaking down in chaos. Others maintain that people are inherently good and it is only institutions like a state that prevent them living in peace and cooperation. Some see the solutions of social problems in the pursuit of material prosperity, whereas others see it in austerity and simplicity. Some advocate private property but by far the majority advocate some form of communism, with equal access to the bounty of nature and equal status between people (I Tod and M Wheeler Utopia, Orbis Publishing, London, 1978, p.7) It is with this last kind of utopia that, I suggest, socialists are primarily concerned with.
mcolome1 wrote:irwellian wrote:I look forward to a possible future with one or two capitalist restorationists standing on a street corner handing out copies of Capitalist Standard to the disinterested socialist masses.Capitalists under a socialist society ? It must be a miracle. Capitalists only exist on a capitalist society based on wage slavery, economical exploitation, extraction of surplus value, value of exchange, market, and private possession of the means of productions. Are we going to have those features under a socialist society ? Probably, not. If they are socialists they are not disinterested socialist either. I have heard from workers the following expression: I am a capitalist because I support capitalism, they are workers supporting capitalism, but they are not capitalists. If the slaves support their masters, Do they become slaves owners ?
Yes , I too have encountered people who say they are capitalists because they support capitalism. Its an unfortunate confusion but it has a certain logic to it. After all we socialists say we support a social system called socialism. But capitalism too is a social sysem so you can see why supporters of this system should call themselves capitalists even though "capitalist" is class category pertaining to capitalism which the great majority of us quite clearly do not fall under. Perhaps to be consistent we should call ourselves "pro-socialists" and the supporters of capitalism, "pro-capitalists". Or we could just live with this confusion and muddle our way through as is usually the case anyway
JamesH81 wrote:yes i would agree with full freedom of speech and no restrictions on non – socialist parties / organisations – to be a truly free socialist society – open debate across the whole political spectrumI would endorse the idea of full freedom of speech but what do you mean "non – socialist parties / organisations", James? I am not even sure we can usefully talk about parties even existing in a socialist society in the sense that parties exist today to aspire to take control of the state, when there is no longer a state to take control of in socialism. That is what a political party would seem to be about – an organisation intent upon capturing state power.There may of course be non socialist organisations in the sense of being organisations intent upon bringing about the restoration of capitalism. I would say they should be permitted to spout their ideas without any kind of restriction being put on them, They are not going to make much headway though. Try persuading an ex-slave that she needs the return of a slave society. But difficult, isnt it?
Bob Andrews wrote:The' World Socialist' claimed the proto-fascist D H Lawrence as a socialist. I don't think it needs reviving.Even if this were true and I have already shoen this to be completely false, how is this an argument against reviving such a journal? It strikes me that a movement called the World Socialist Movement needs a journal called the World Socialist or some such – no? In any event, my main point stands – there is a pressing need for a journal which has a more theoretical or, if you prefer, academic approach than the Socialist Standard which quite rightly focusses on more topical issues,
Bob Andrews wrote:The' World Socialist' claimed the proto-fascist D H Lawrence as a socialist. I don't think it needs reviving.Here is the article in question – judge for yourself. And you are dead wrong. The article said quite explicitly "He was not a socialist and did not profess to be one" From the Winter 1985-6 issue of the World Socialist D. H. Lawrence and the abolition of money The novelist and poet, D. H. Lawrence, who died in 1930, was born one hundred years ago, on 11 September, 1885. He was not a socialist and did not profess to be one, but there can be no doubt that he possessed some excellent ideas about what was wrong with the money-wages-profit system and what sort of society would be fitter for humans to live in. Certain rather foolish literary gentlemen and superficial Leftists have described Lawrence as a fascist. There is no evidence to support this claim, and we would argue that it is a label mainly put about by Stalinists who resented Lawrence for having been a non-conservative who was totally opposed to the state-capitalist dictatorship of the Russian Empire. In the 1930s to have taken up such a position, even if you were in favour of social transformation, meant that the so-called Communists would call you a fascist in the hope of discrediting you. In the case of D. H. Lawrence, who wrote explicitly about why he opposed fascism, the label struck and the smear has no doubt led many people to dismiss the social and political context of his poetry. To do so is to dismiss some of the most forcefully revolutionary poems ever written in English, a selection of which we publish below. They were written in 1929 and are taken from the second volume of Lawrence's selected poems published by Heinemann (the book is deceptively called Pansies, but we can assure you that it is not about flowers). Why did Lawrence take up some of the ideas expressed in these poems? Reading them, one might think that he was acquainted with the Socialist Party of Great Britain, but there is no evidence to show that he was. More likely, Lawrence picked up the socialist content of his thinking as a result of visiting the home of his girlfriend until 1912, Louise Burrows, whose father was a committed socialist who possessed the socialist writings of William Morris and spent his time talking with Lawrence about the case for socialism whenever the young writer visited his house. The connection between William Morris and D. H. Lawrence is rarely made, and shallow critics would have it that the former was a romantic revolutionary while the latter was a fascistic reactionary (both utterly mistaken observations): in fact, it will be seen from the poems published here that Lawrence too shared a passion to change the insane society of capitalism, and that, if anything, his poetry was more expressive in its simplicity. Moreover, it is known that he had read Morris' News From Nowhere, and was inspired by its depiction of a socialist society. The poems can be accessed here http://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com.es/2013/12/d-h-lawrence-and-abolition-of-money.html
jondwhite wrote:Cheers, but I'm talking more scholarly, e.g. more about this sort of thinghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_journalAnyone familiar with Capital&Class, Rethinking Marxism or Historical Materialism?I have a few copies of Capital & Class somewhere. Not too bad. Although the problem with many lefty "academic" journals is 1) they come across as somewhat pretentious and snobby in the language they employ and 2) they dont really have much if any commitment to the goal of a genuine socialist society. Its often just lip service with them, a clothes horse onto which they can hang their academic credentials I wouldnt class the Socialist Standard as an "academic journal" which is not to denigrate the important work that it does. However, I do think there is an urgent need for a journal of some kind that looks into issues relevant to the movement in much more systematic and detailed way Whatever happened to the "World Socialist"? Is it it not high time it was revived?
JamesH81 wrote:what is the spgb / world socialist movements position on freedom of speech…. and would only one socialist party…. exist in wsm / spgb real socialist worldI would hope that in a "real socialist world", political parties along with political power itself (the state) will disppear. In the meantime socialists cannot but be for the fullest possible freedom of speech. You cannot separate the means and the ends. The end determines the means,. A free and democratic society requires methods to bring it about that are themselves free and democratic….
JoanOfArc wrote:in russia the capitalst owned corps were taken under government control. i do not agree with taking over one culture with another. it has to be done gradually and purely at the will of the people, many people. not just a few so called socialist dictators. as Engels pointed out that state capitalism would provide tools for socialism. it would make the state richer that's for sure. and that then can be used to bring about socialism. i see different models of ownership being piloted and time for experimentation. but you need financial resources within this capitalist system to do this.]JoanI would argue that state ownership is simply a variant of private property, It is certainly not common property and therefore by default, has to be some form of private or sectional property – namely, the collectivised property of a ruling class – who own the means of production in de facto terms by virtue of their ultimate control over those means via their stranglehold on the state apparatus itself. If you ultimately control something you own it and vice versa Common ownership of the means of production is logically incompatible with a system of economic exchange and this is certainly what exists under a system of state capitalism . In the Soviet Union, goods and services were bought and sold, there were employers and employees and thus the commodification of labour power itself , other means of production (constant capital) are also subject to market exchange and legally binding contracts. The Soviet union was a fully functioning capitalist system in every sense that mattered Might I recommend to you this brilliant work by Paresh Chattopadhyay which you can download and readhttps://libcom.org/library/paresh-chattopadhyay-marxian-concept-capital-soviet-experience I cannot see any advantage whatsover for preferring state capitalism to any other form of capitalism. Marx and Engels in the Communist Manifesto made a serious blunder, in my view, in advocating the centralisation of the means of production in the hands of state – though they latter backtracked on thiis. They reasoned that this would hasten the development of the forces of production and hence the arrival of socialism. They also reasoned that it would facilitate the changeover to socialism though unlike Lenin never made the mistake of equating socialism with state ownership. Large scale socialised production, they argued, makes it easier for the revolutinary movement to take over the means of production. Stalin explained away the continuance of commodity production in the Soivet Union mainly because of the agricultural sector which was comprised of numerous small to medium sized production units. I think the whole argument is bogus. State capitalism does not bring us one step closer to socialism at all. On the contrary I would say state capitalism in its full blooded sense belngs to an era of early capitalism. It is the sign of an immature capitalism based on extensive rather than intensive growth via technological innovation. And it has been rendered obsolete by the globalisation of capitalism itself There is no warrant for advocating any kind of capitalism today as a supposed transitional step towards socialism since the forces of production are already more than adequately developed to underwrite and sustain a genuinely socialist society – and have been for at least a century now
mcolome1 wrote:I know that Lenin admired Germany state capitalism, like Roosevelt admired the German Nazis, but the first Bolshevik who exposed the conception was BukharinDo you possibly have a link to Bukharin's work on this? I know he mentioned somewhere that state capitalism was comparable to "white slavery" I think it was Wilhelm Leibknecht, one of the founders of the German SDP who first coined the expression "state capitalism", In 1896 he remarked: “Nobody has combatted State Socialism more than we German Socialists, nobody has shown more distinctively than I, that State Socialism is really State capitalism" https://www.marxists.org/archive/liebknecht-w/1896/08/our-congress.htm
mcolome1 wrote:It was Lenin, and he borrowed the idea or the concept from Nikolai Bukharin, and he also absurdly indicated that it was for the benefits of the working class. Since when capitalism has been beneficial for the working class ? . The first intent and realization of state capitalism was the Soviet UnionHmmm, I would say it was Germany under the anti socialist, Bismarck.00 Lenin admired German state capitalism. Here's what he said To make things even clearer, let us first of all take the most concrete example of state capitalism. Everybody knows what this example is. It is Germany”.Moreover “While the revolution in Germany is still slow in “coming forth”, our task is to study the state capitalism of the Germans, to spare no effort in copying it and not shrink from adopting dictatorialmethods to hasten the copying of it.” https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/may/09.htm
